STRATHCLYDE are the first Scottish team through to the quarter finals of this year’s University Challenge.
When the gong sounded at the end of the half hour, the Scots university had 135 points. Their opponents, Manchester University, scored 100.
Missing from the original Manchester line-up was Patrick Jones-O’Brien from Pennsylvania. Quiz host Jeremy Paxman put his absence down to “these benighted times”. As last week, filming was done under Covid-19 restrictions with contestants separated by glass screens.
Another sign of the lockdown times were the two "man buns" on Strathclyde’s team, in contrast to the short hair sported by all in the first round.
READ MORE: Strathclyde's first round victory
Turning out for Strathclyde were: Cameron Welsh from Glasgow, studying statistics; David Curran, Glasgow, civil engineering; James Whittle, Glasgow, PhD in power systems (captain); and Tom Starr-Marshall, who introduced himself as “the token Englishman”, in this case from London, studying speech and language therapy.
On Manchester’s team were the original line-up of Ralph Scott, from Aberystwyth, studying for a PhD in politics; Alex Spacey (captain), Hampshire, PhD history; and Andrew Snedden, Surrey, PhD in neuromuscular disease. Vin Le Ngoc, from Hampshire, a graduate in electrical and electronic engineering, stepped up from the reserves.
Paxman opened by praising the University of Strathclyde’s “healthy” win in their first round match against Imperial College, London.
READ MORE: Glaswegian contestant feels wrath of Paxo
“Science fiction and Norse mythology were among their strengths, and they also seemed far more comfortable answering on Mozart than on hip hop,” he added, earning a polite titter from the socially distanced audience.
Manchester were first on the scoreboard, followed by Strathclyde. It was a close fought contest for much of the time, with both teams tying at 95 each at one point.
But several crucial early interventions from Welsh and Starr-Marshall saw Strathclyde pull ahead and not look back.
“Well Manchester, you were in the lead there but you just faded a little bit towards the end,” said Paxman.
READ MORE: Edinburgh edges ahead in contest
Strathclyde were praised for “a terrific barnstorming performance - once you got going”.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel